


While you were sleeping

by savvyliterate



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Get your hankies out kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 00:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1837273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvyliterate/pseuds/savvyliterate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst part was he couldn’t use the centuries of carefully honed self-control to turn away from her. This was his penance. Watching her sleep and knowing that once again she had given up her life to save his. It had been his choice, and he knew in a way he had manipulated her into this, telling Melody Pond the one thing he’d been unable to tell River Song. So she slept, and he waited. She would wake up eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While you were sleeping

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Tumblr prompt from engprof: "Doctor watching River while she sleeps."

The nuns at Sisters of the Infinite Schism didn’t question the Doctor when they found him roaming through the pristine corridors at night, absently flicking through the tablet of chart information kept at the foot of their patient’s bed. There were privacy laws, of course, but Amy had listed him among next of kin and insisted he had every right to know about the health and well-being of her daughter. Everyone knew he would just subvert the nuns and gain the information on his own anyhow, so he was added to the list as Melody Pond’s significant other.

No one objected.

On the first night he visited, the Doctor hovered just out of eyesight as Amy sat at the foot of the bed, absently rubbing River’s calf while talking with Rory. She was paler than he’d ever seen, and he simply didn’t have a memory that didn’t include River being awake and full of life - even at the very end when she had sacrificed herself. This sleep of hers, forced upon her because she had given the rest of her lives to save his worthless one, was unnatural. Wrong. So very, very wrong. 

And the worst part was he couldn’t use the centuries of carefully honed self-control to turn away from her. This was his penance. Watching her sleep and knowing that once again she had given up her life to save his. It had been his choice, and he knew in a way he had manipulated her into this, telling Melody Pond the one thing he’d been unable to tell River Song.

So she slept, and he waited. She would wake up eventually.

On the second night he visited, the Doctor sat wearily in the chair next to the bed. “Tell my daughter to visit her old mum sometime,” Amy had just told him, and he’d pass on the message. Eventually. He absently rubbed his forehead and studied the sleeping face of the woman in the bed next to him.

"It was for their own good," he said. "And yours. They don’t know what’s coming for me. I do. And I know your role in it now. It’s clear to me. I’m not quite ready for it yet, I hope you understand, my dear."

 _My dear._ The endearment rolled off his tongue for the first time, and it felt … not wrong. So he kept it. 

On the third night he visited, the Doctor swept out of the TARDIS in a white tuxedo and carrying a massive armload of flowers. He stopped up short at the site of the hospital bed. Confusion, then realization. The TARDIS had redirected him.

"I’m on my way to pick you up for our wedding night … ish," he informed her, free with the spoilers since there was no possible way she could hear him. At this stage of her recovery, River was still taking a heavy enough drug cocktail to make her sleep long and dreamless. "Got a bit redirected, but never you mind that. Color’s coming back. Easier sleep this time. Right, flowers. You can keep these. Tulips from Dravionia, and I made sure these were depollinated this time. Older you’s yet to stop mocking me for the violet paint, and I am not telling you where it landed yet. You’re not old enough for that.”

He set the flowers on the nightstand and swore he saw the shadows of her trademark smirk as he danced back into the TARDIS.

On the fourth night he visited, the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and gripped the handrails of River’s bed tightly. “No matter what happens,” he informed her, “your parents love you. They’re having a hard time of it right now, but I’ll fix it. Just be patient. Oh, why am I telling you that? You’re a Pond.” He tweaked his bow tie.

On the fifth night he visited, the Doctor couldn’t bring himself to walk out of the TARDIS. He clung to the door, face as pale as hers on that first night, eyes full of sorrow.

"I lost them," he said. "I’m so, so sorry, River."

On the sixth night he visited, the Doctor wore a black tuxedo. A crumpled top hat lay next to the chair. He sat at the foot of the bed and sobbed as if the universe was ending, because for him, it just had.

On the seventh night he visited, he wore purple tweed and had managed to elude a now-sleeping Clara. He adjusted River’s blankets, allowed himself to move an errant curl behind her ear. “You told me what I needed to hear,” he whispered. “You were right, as always. Thank you, dear.”

On the final night, he wore a different face. He didn’t stay long, but he had to come. Time to close the circle. He smiled down at her, absently twisting the rings he wore on his left hand. 

"You’re going to go onto great things, my love," he said, the words right on his tongue in this face. "Ah, seeing it from both ends now, it’s going to be a grand adventure for us both. Force me to make the most of it, will you? I’ll thank you in the end for it. See you in the future, River Song."

He kissed her, lightly and just intimate enough that she started to stir restlessly. He cupped her cheek and turned away from the bed to encounter a familiar smirk.

"So, I didn’t dream you were making out with me in my sleep on my final night here," a much older River said, tying the sash of her dressing gown as she leaned against the TARDIS door. 

"Didn’t think you remembered any of that," the Doctor huffed.

"Oh, my love." She slid her arm around his waist as he walked back to her and he kissed the top of her head. "I remembered everything."

"Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me." He let her tug him back into the TARDIS, to undo the buttons of the clothes he had just donned. "Wait, did you say _everything?_ ”

She let her kiss answer the question for him.


End file.
